{"id":10677,"date":"2016-11-05T21:43:38","date_gmt":"2012-11-05T21:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.viamedic.com\/blog\/?p=685"},"modified":"2012-11-05T21:43:38","modified_gmt":"2012-11-05T21:43:38","slug":"eating-meat-made-us-human-suggests-fossil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edrugstore.com\/blog\/current-health-news\/eating-meat-made-us-human-suggests-fossil\/","title":{"rendered":"Eating Meat Made Us Human Suggests Fossil"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent discovery of a 1.5-million-year-old child\u2019s skull may shed some light on what our early ancestors\u2019 diets consisted of. —\u00a0Click to Tweet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Early humans may have had a much different diet than scientists expected. (Photo by dctim1 on Flickr.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many people have thought that pre-human hominids such as australopithecines may have eaten some meat<\/a>. But new evidence suggests that early human ancestors may have been regular meat eaters, not just occasional carnivores.<\/p>\n

In fact, the regular consumption of meat is now thought to have triggered the most major changes in our lineage, which is the genus Homo. Meat as a high-energy food may have allowed us to evolve much larger brains than ever before.<\/p>\n

The Previous Evidence<\/strong>
\nThe earliest solid evidence for pre-human meat eating dates back to 2.6 million years ago, in Gona in Ethiopia. There we have found small stone tools that were most likely used to butcher meat.<\/p>\n

Some contentious evidence suggests that butchery may have existed much earlier, however, as far back as 3.4 million years ago. This current piece of evidence, though, suggests that we weren\u2019t just performing occasional butchery 1.5 million years ago: it suggests that meat had become an important part of our diet.<\/p>\n

The Child\u2019s Skull<\/strong>
\nThe child\u2019s skull I\u2019m referring to was found in the Olduvai Gorge of Tanzania. It belonged to one of our ancestors who was less than 2 years old.<\/p>\n

The child was suffering from a form of malnutrition that we most commonly see in modern people who have meat-poor diets. The evidence suggests that if the child was suffering from similar symptoms to modern people who lack sufficient meat in their diet, then prehumans at the time must have been adapted to eating meat on a regular basis.<\/p>\n

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Pre-human primates may have spent much more time carrying meat than we expected. (Photo by dctim1 on Flickr.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Meat-Deficient Symptoms<\/strong>
\nThis particular child suffered from bone lesions called porotic hyperostosis. Modern-day people who suffer from this condition usually lack vitamins B9 and B12. Most likely, researchers say, the child\u2019s deficiency was either from a lack of meat, or if she was still weaning, a lack of meat in her mother\u2019s diet.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Other Possibilities<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s entirely possible that this child\u2019s condition could have been caused by diseases, or some other cause besides malnourishment. Malaria and some parasites, for example, are known to cause similar deficiencies. \u201cBasically, anything that correlates with low red-cell<\/a> count,\u201d according to John Hawks, from the University of Wisconsin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent discovery of a 1.5-million-year-old child\u2019s skull may shed some light on what our early ancestors\u2019 diets consisted of. —\u00a0Click to Tweet. Many people have thought that pre-human hominids such as australopithecines may have eaten some meat. But new evidence suggests that early human ancestors may have been regular meat eaters, not just occasional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_autoblog_aioseo_focus_keyphrase":"","_autoblog_aioseo_title":"","_autoblog_aioseo_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-health-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t